CRAFTING A COMPELLING VISION
If you would like to craft a compelling vision, operate out of imagination rather than memory. When you start with what you’ve done before, your thinking is incremental. When you start with your imagination, your thinking can be transformational. In this mode, anything is possible.
If you think about how to develop a goal, a vision or a strategy, you typically start with “Where have we come from?” and then you focus on “Where do we want to go?”
But as soon as you ask the question, “Where have we come from?” you anchor to the past. You instantly limit your field of possibility and potential.
A better approach is to somersault into the future to envision a world that does not yet exist. You want to ask questions that are open and unlimited. “Where do we really want to be? If everything went extraordinarily well for us, what might be possible? Let’s imagine, we’re sitting here in five years, and we’ve achieved greater than we thought possible, what are we celebrating?”
Powerful visions are often metaphoric or multi-sensory; they encourage you not just to think, but to see, hear and feel. Just imagine if Martin Luther King had gone with “I have a plan” rather than “I have a dream.”
A vision can be the force that unites your people toward a common end. Rather than spend precious time and resources competing with one another, they have a clear mandate to collaborate instead.
INSPIRATION FROM OTHERS
“Capital isn’t scarce; vision is.” – Sam Walton
“Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
QUESTIONS TO REFLECT ON
- Where are you and your team headed?
- What would it look like if you were truly successful?
- What is the one goal that can unite you all?
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